The Super Famicom was released in Japan on November 21, 1990 while the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was released in America on August 13, 1991, in Europe in April 1992 and in Australia in July 1992. They were discontinued in 1999, followed by the Famicom model and the SNES/Super Famicom games which discontinued in 2003. It remained popular throughout the 32/64 bit era, selling 49.10 million units during its lifetime. Nintendo also worked with Sony to create the planned add-on, the SNES CD to rival against Sega CD. However, Nintendo's cooperation with Sony crumbled so the SNES CD was moved to Philips for a short time. The projects resulted in the Philips CD-i and the Sony PlayStation.

The SNES was re-released as the SNES 2, being released at the same time as the Nintendo 64. As well as this, it was smaller and lacked the eject button. It also could not output the S-Video and RGB signals.

The SNES was based on a Japanese console called the Super Famicom. Famicom was a mix between the word Family and Computer. The two received revisions known as Super Famicom Jr. for Japan and New-Style Super NES for North America.[1] The two redesigns are similar, but feature the same differences as the original models.

The PAL SNES is a mix between the Super Famicom and the USA SNES, keeping the design of the Super Famicom, but using the name from the USA version.

Only in North America is the design different from other regions. It is possible to play games from other regions as internally the hardware is region free, but one would have to cut out tabs or get an adapter that would otherwise prevent the cartridges from making contact with the cartridge slot. The pin configurations are the same and compatible, unlike the Family Computer and Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges.

Many early SNES cartridges had a long crevice spanning the cartridge. This was to prevent people from pulling the cartridges out when the system was turned on. Later SNES cartridges opted into a different design because people were possibly breaking their SNES units.[citation needed] The older cartridges will work on the redesigned SNES with no issues. It even lacks the tab to prevent people from pulling the cartridges out. Only North America seems to have this redesign.

The SNES Controller is the main controller for the SNES which had a layout which popularized the layout used by most modern controllers. It was also the first controller to have shoulder buttons. The controller is more round-shaped instead of rectangle-shaped from the NES controller.

The American controller is slightly different from the Japanese and the PAL controllers. Instead of having each button be a different bright color, the and buttons were purple and the and buttons were lavender, tying into the mechanical color scheme of the SNES's American model.

It has the , , , and buttons and the from the NES, plus four extra buttons: the , , , and buttons.

There is also a Wii adaption of the SNES controller for use as a substitution for the Classic Controller with games that support said controller.

The Super Game Boy is a cartridge adaptor that allow play of all Game Boy and some Game Boy Color games made backwards compatible to work on the older Game Boy. Some Game Boy games are Super Game Boy enhanced, such as Donkey Kong.

The SNES Mouse was an accessory for certain SNES games. It was compatible only with the SNES and was thus only used in the early-to-mid-1990s. The SNES Mouse mimics the appearance and action of an actual computer mouse; the SNES Mouse controlled the Stripe Pointer in some Mario games.

The SNES Mouse was originally bundled with Mario Paint and a mouse pad for $59.95.

The SNES Super Scope is a light gun accessory for the SNES. It has one "fire" button for shooting, either in single bursts or a constant stream, depending on whether or not its on/off switch is set to "turbo". It also has a second "cursor" button and a "pause" button. It was used for very few games, including one Mario title, Yoshi's Safari.

The Super Multitap, by Hudson Soft, allowed to turn the player 2 controller port into four controller ports, allowing for up to five simultaneous players, but only if the game supports it. Although no Mario SNES game uses the Super Multitap, Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! for the Game Boy can use the accessory if played in a Super Game Boy, although the game never uses the fifth available controller slot.

A Japan-exclusive add-on for the Super Famicom was the Satellaview. It was the earliest known, commercially available, licensed product by Nintendo to connect to the internet and download games. The Super Famicom Jr. is incompatible because of the missing port underneath the first model had.